The Bishop without doubt knew a good work of art when he saw one, and his knowledge informed him that technically his "sunset on a river" was bad; but it appealed to his sentiment and occupied its place on the study wall in spite of its defects. In this respect, most people are with the Bishop; it is not so much the quality of a work of art that makes it popular, but the particular strain of sentiment it contains that touches a responsive chord in the hearts of those who look at it. The English public are sentimentalists first and foremost in art, and the artist who receives the greatest acclamation is he who is most skilful in this direction. And if this is so in respect to painting, how much more so is it with regard to sculpture. Public enthusiasm is rarely roused by the sculptor's art. Next to the architectural room at the Royal Academy, the sculpture hall is the least frequented, and we fear it must be said that the majority of those who do go there go because it is the coolest place in the exhibition.

This, of course, is matter for regret, for there are as ennobling and inspiriting works of art to be seen there as in the picture galleries. The sculptor has the power to appeal to our ideals and aspirations to as great an extent as the painter, limited though he be by his materials. (It can at once be realised that the worker in marble has not the same freedom as he who uses paint and canvas—he has greater difficulties to surmount, less subjects to choose from, and far narrower scope in which to express his thoughts.) We have had "sermons in stones" which have been quite as powerful as any preached by painter or poet.

The classical tradition has undoubtedly affected the sculptor more than it has his brother-artist of the brush; it has weighed him down, and made his work cold and lifeless; and men and women of to-day want art that is living, helpful in their daily straggles, responsive to those aspirations which every one of them possesses in a measure. As a distinguished member of the Royal Academy, now dead, once wrote, "We have aspirations, we reverence something more than the ordinary life of mortals; we have before our eyes an ideal of truthfulness, piety, honour, uprightness, love, and self-sacrifice greater than any which exists on earth." To appeal to these emotions by a beautiful and living art should be the object of our artists, and those who do can be sure of receiving the approval and the gratitude of the toilers of the world. This has been proved over and over again by the votes taken at Canon Barnett's picture exhibitions as to the most popular works shown, when men like Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., and the late Sir Edward Burne-Jones have been first favourites. And this probably accounts in a measure for the public indifference to works of sculpture. The sculptor has for the most part neglected subjects which appeal to the hearts of the people of his day, and based his work on classic models and precepts.

In saying this we do not in any wise belittle the great works of the past. It is impossible to look on the mighty works of the ancient Egyptian workers in stone without feeling the sense of awe which the people of those days must have experienced—and were intended to experience—when gazing upon them. Mystery is the keynote of Egyptian sculpture, mystery deep and unfathomable. Look upon those inscrutable, gigantic faces in the British Museum; coldly inhuman; giants of stone, indifferent to the passions which pulsate in the human breast. Mighty works indeed—parables impossible of interpretation!

Look, too, at the works in the Assyrian galleries of the same collection. Marvellous of execution, they again draw forth admiration for the skill of their creators, for their dexterous records of the life of those far-off days, for the massive and imposing decorativeness of the semi-human lions and bulls. And then, coming down the ages, consider the beauty of form of the works of the sculptors of classic days; the wondrous productions of the Greeks, the perfection of line and grace of these representations in stone of the "human form divine." Masterpieces of the world which will never be excelled as works of art, they, nevertheless, do not appeal to the hearts of the people, and in adhering to the style of ancient Greece our sculptors have themselves to blame for the lack of popular sympathy.

The sculptors of Italy who shared in the revival of art in the fifteenth century understood this. Without sacrificing in the least the beauty of the classic artists, they infused into their work that touch of sentiment—either religious or frankly human—which won for them the admiration of their contemporaries, and enables them, though long since dead, to speak to us through their art. The charming creations of Donatello, the delightful child-forms of Lucca della Robbia, the gigantic creations of Michelangelo—gigantic both in conception and execution—appeal to us primarily for the humanity which they reflect: admiration for their beauty follows in due course.

Until comparatively recent years English sculptors have failed to appreciate this public taste, and the public work all through our country has been deplorably lacking either in sentiment or art. The ghastly figures which are exposed in London streets rouse no enthusiasm, and only claim attention because of the men of which they are memorials. Curiously enough the only really beautiful piece of allegorical sculpture in our city is the work of a Frenchman, and that is smothered under a hideous cupola! I refer to the charming little group symbolising "Charity," on the drinking fountain by the Royal Exchange. This beautiful figure of a woman and two children the work of Dalou, was originally shown in stone, but the ravages of the London climate destroyed the features of the figures, and it was only when replaced by a bronze cast of the original model a year or two ago that its full beauty could be appreciated by the present generation. The symbolism is not intricate, the parable can be read by the most ignorant, and understood by all, but it is "a thing of beauty," and therefore a joy for ever.

The English sculptors who are claiming attention to-day are men influenced largely by the spirit of "modernity." They are giving us works which appeal to our sentiment as well as to our sense of beauty. Look, for instance, at the charming group by Mr. Alfred Gilbert, R.A., which is illustrated on page 345. One wishes that the original could be placed in position where people could see it every day. It is a simple subject, but what greater lesson can be enforced upon us than that of the holiness and purity of a mother's love and solicitude for her child? There is in one of the public squares of Paris a group very similar to this by Delaplanche. A mother is again giving her child its first lesson in reading. Tender and pure in sentiment, it is an object lesson to all who behold it.

The nobleness and dignity of labour provide our sculptors with a manifold variety of subjects, but there are not many English artists who have availed themselves of it. Among these, however, is the distinguished Royal Academician, Mr. Hamo Thornycroft. "The Sower Scattering Seed" is but the representation of an English farm "hand," but it would be difficult to find a piece of work among English sculptures to excel it in grace and beauty of line. The artist has executed another work of "A Mower"—again an English farm-labourer, leaning on his scythe—which is another example of his skill in the adaptation of a subject which can be understood and appreciated by every man, down to him who actually wields the scythe.

Biblical subjects have found exponents in sculpture to a very large extent from the days of the Renaissance downwards. The old Italians decorated their churches with such to almost as great an extent as the painters of their time did; and many sculptors to-day find their inspiration in Scripture in like manner. We have chosen some for illustration in this paper—two by living artists, and one by Warrington Woods, a sculptor who lived some years ago, when "classic" style and subject were deemed necessary by the workers in the sculpturesque arts. "The Sisters of Bethany" is infected by this spirit, but is, nevertheless, pleasing to a certain extent. The "Faith" of Mr. Alfred Drury, is, on the other hand, distinctly pictorial and frankly illustrative of the subject. The "St. John the Baptist," by Mr. Goscombe John, another of our rising sculptors, is a beautiful figure which belongs to the Marquis of Bute, and stands in the centre of a fountain basin in the garden of St. John's Lodge, Regent's Park.

On page 347 is the most ambitious of the allegorical works among our illustrations, and is the work of Mr. A. C. Lucchesi, a young sculptor of whom great things may be expected. "The Mountain of Fame" represents a warrior, who, struggling to acquire the laurel wreath, has in his efforts thrown away sword and shield and is reaching after the honour which is held temptingly before him by the figure of Fame. Almost within his grasp, it yet eludes him, and the rough path up which he has stumbled has not yet brought him to the summit. His weapons, cast aside in the assurance of victory, are left behind; but the wreath is still not his, and he is helpless against further dangers which may await him; the eagerness for fame may prove his ruin and all his strivings end in disaster. Readers of Miss Olive Schreiner's "Story of an African Farm" will remember the beautiful parable upon this subject, and I asked the sculptor if this had influenced him at all in the work. The suggestion was almost a revelation to him, for, although he had read the book and remembered vividly this particular passage, yet confessed that it was quite out of his mind when he modelled this group. But the influence of the story is distinctly visible.

Memorial sculpture, of course, forms a large part of a sculptor's work, and the example by Mr. Armstead illustrated on this page is typical of a great many of the kind. The most beautiful and dignified monument we possess is without doubt Alfred Stevens' great work in St. Paul's Cathedral in memory of the Duke of Wellington—one that can never be sufficiently admired, contrasting as it does with the grandiose monuments of the last century in the same building and at Westminster Abbey.

We illustrate on this page one of the most curious monuments in the latter building. It is the work of Roubiliac, a Frenchman who worked in England in the eighteenth century. The tomb is that of Joseph Gascoigne Nightingale, of Minehead, Somersetshire, and of the Lady Elizabeth, his wife, who died soon after her marriage. From the dark recesses of the tomb below issues the skeleton form of Death, in the act of hurling his lance at the wife, while the husband leans forward with extended arm to ward off the fatal blow from his loved partner, who is sinking to rest beside him.

Death, however, can be represented far better than by a ghastly skeleton, as Mr. George Frampton, A.R.A., has proved in his dignified "Angel of Death" which stands in the Camberwell Art Gallery. This figure of a young man, carrying the traditional scythe across his shoulder and an hour-glass in his hand, reminds us of Mr. Watts' constant representation of the "grim messenger"—no longer "grim," however, but beautiful, erect, inviting—the harbinger of the land where there shall be no more tears, neither sorrow nor sighing.

Arthur Fish.